Hamlet

Original Text

Modern Text

If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their
repair hither and say you are not fit.

HORATIO

If something is telling you not to play, listen to it.
I’ll say you’re not feeling well.

HAMLET

Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special
providence in
the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come.
If it be
not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will
come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows,
what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.

HAMLET

You’ll do no such thing. I thumb my nose at
superstitions. God controls everything—even something as
trivial as a sparrow’s death. Everything will work out as
it is destined. If something is supposed to happen now, it will. If
it’s supposed to happen later, it won’t happen
now. What’s important is to be prepared. Since nobody
knows anything about what he leaves behind, then what does it mean
to leave early? Let it be.

Enter King CLAUDIUS, Queen
GERTRUDE, LAERTES,
OSRIC, lords, and other attendants with trumpets, drums,
foils, a table, and flagons of wine

CLAUDIUS enters with
GERTRUDE, LAERTES,
OSRIC, lords, and other attendants with trumpets, drums,
fencing swords, a table, and pitchers of wine.

CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
(puts LAERTES'
hand into
HAMLET's)

(to
LAERTES) I beg your pardon, sir.
I’ve done you wrong. Forgive me as a gentleman. Everyone
here knows—and I’m sure you’ve
heard—that I’m suffering from a serious mental
illness. When I insulted you it was due to insanity. Was Hamlet the
one who insulted Laertes? No, not Hamlet. If Hamlet is robbed of his
own mind, and insults Laertes when he’s not really
himself, then Hamlet’s not guilty of the offense. Who is
guilty, then? Hamlet’s mental illness is.